Samuel Johnson eBook

Amongst the members of the club, however, were such
men as Horsley and Windham. Windham seems to
have attracted more personal regard than most politicians,
by a generous warmth of enthusiasm not too common in
the class. In politics he was an ardent disciple
of Burke’s, whom he afterwards followed in his
separation from the new Whigs. But, though adhering
to the principles which Johnson detested, he knew,
like his preceptor, how to win Johnson’s warmest
regard. He was the most eminent of the younger
generation who now looked up to Johnson as a venerable
relic from the past. Another was young Burke,
that very priggish and silly young man as he seems
to have been, whose loss, none the less, broke the
tender heart of his father. Friendships, now more
interesting, were those with two of the most distinguished
authoresses of the day. One of them was Hannah
More, who was about this time coming to the conclusion
that the talents which had gained her distinction in
the literary and even in the dramatic world, should
be consecrated to less secular employment. Her
vivacity during the earlier years of their acquaintance
exposed her to an occasional rebuff. “She
does not gain upon me, sir; I think her empty-headed,”
was one of his remarks; and it was to her that he
said, according to Mrs. Thrale, though Boswell reports
a softened version of the remark, that she should “consider
what her flattery was worth, before she choked him
with it.” More frequently, he seems to
have repaid it in kind. “There was no name
in poetry,” he said, “which might not
be glad to own her poem”—­the Bas
Bleu. Certainly Johnson did not stick at
trifles in intercourse with his female friends.
He was delighted, shortly before his death, to “gallant
it about” with her at Oxford, and in serious
moments showed a respectful regard for her merits.
Hannah More, who thus sat at the feet of Johnson,
encouraged the juvenile ambition of Macaulay, and did
not die till the historian had grown into manhood
and fame. The other friendship noticed was with
Fanny Burney, who also lived to our own time.
Johnson’s affection for this daughter of his
friend seems to have been amongst the tenderest of
his old age. When she was first introduced to
him at the Thrales, she was overpowered and indeed
had her head a little turned by flattery of the most
agreeable kind that an author can receive. The
“great literary Leviathan” showed himself
to have the recently published Evelina at his
fingers’ ends. He quoted, and almost acted
passages. “La! Polly!” he exclaimed
in a pert feminine accent, “only think!
Miss has danced with a lord!” How many modern
readers can assign its place to that quotation, or
answer the question which poor Boswell asked in despair
and amidst general ridicule for his ignorance, “What
is a Brangton?” There is something pleasant
in the enthusiasm with which men like Johnson and
Burke welcomed the literary achievements of the young
lady, whose first novels seem to have made a sensation